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from the renewable-energy-will-ruin-the-economy dept.
The NYT writes in an editorial that for the last few months, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy by pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive.
The coal producers' motivation is clear: They see solar and wind energy as a long-term threat to their businesses. That might seem distant at the moment, when nearly 40 percent of the nation's electricity is still generated by coal, and when less than 1 percent of power customers have solar arrays. But given new regulations on power-plant emissions of mercury and other pollutants, and the urgent need to reduce global warming emissions, the future clearly lies with renewable energy.
For example, the Arizona Public Service Company, the state's largest utility, funneled large sums through a Koch operative to a nonprofit group that ran an ad claiming net metering would hurt older people on fixed incomes by raising electric rates. The ad tried to link the requirement to President Obama. Another Koch ad likens the renewable-energy requirement to health care reform, the ultimate insult in that world. "Like Obamacare, it's another government mandate we can't afford," the narrator says. "That line might appeal to Tea Partiers, but it's deliberately misleading," concludes the editorial. "This campaign is really about the profits of Koch Carbon and the utilities, which to its organizers is much more important than clean air and the consequences of climate change."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday April 29 2014, @05:55AM
Long term? Far from it, it's a present and imminent danger for them, unless rolled back immediately and declared prohibited.
You see, solar panels transform every person that uses them from a bound (consumer) into a producer. As such, with every person doing so:
* the coal energy producers are losing income and they'll need to raise prices to stay in business;
* with every price raise, there will be more persons willing to abandon them.
Countries more advanced in using renewables already show signs of the so called utilities spiral of death [reneweconomy.com.au].
Even countries with a lower level of renewables penetration may exhibit the similar symptoms (e.g. being pushed by the greed of the "griders" [abc.net.au] - 51% of the cost of energy in Australia is due to "network charges"). Guess what? The photovoltaics are cheap now, subsidized or not, there is an alternative to get out from their control, even if only a little bit at a time.
One of the dangers, though: the govts will be losing a part of their taxes - for certain, I'm not paying any tax on the electricity from my solar panels, but neither the coal burners ('cause I'm not paying them for it). I don't know how govts are going to react, but I'm dread the reaction of the "pro-business" ones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 29 2014, @08:10AM
Interesting article! The problem with off grid might be the cost of energy storage.
Anything that legally prevent wiring to the neighbors to share power sources and storage?
(ie diesel engine for peak and spare as well as batteries)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 29 2014, @02:25PM
As a non-lawyer:
1. You would have to obtain an easement if you cross either public land or private land of someone who doesn't want to be a part of your network. So wiring up to the house next door is probably doable, but wiring up to the house across the street is probably not.
2. There may also be local, county, or state regulations preventing the development of a competitor to the granted electric utility monopoly, which could stop you from doing what you have in mind.
There's an obvious practical problem with your plan though: If you don't have sunlight or wind, your next door neighbor almost definitely doesn't either. I could imagine an advantage if one of you agrees to run the solar and the other agrees to run the windmills (and both make sense in your location), but other than that you and your neighbor are in basically the same boat. There will also be a challenge if either power system breaks - if your neighbor has a problem, you'll probably have to deal with a brownout.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Tuesday April 29 2014, @07:49PM
But there are economies of scale -- a diesel generator or battery bank (y'know, the actual things GP talked about sharing...) of twice the power/energy is likely to cost less than twice as much.
And stuff like pump-up gravitational storage, if it's doable at all, may be only be feasible on one person's property, but they may be able to do a big enough installation to benefit several neighbors who lack suitable topography, provided those neighbors chip in for the additional cost of excavation.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 29 2014, @09:33PM
The thing is that a dieselgenerator that powers at least 4 households has an efficiency of circa 45%. For less load the efficiency is crap.